Writing Free Verse Poetry: More Mentors

I was reading a post Franki wrote about a new free-verse poetry novel, 42 Miles. After reading about it, I went on to Amazon and purchased a copy through the Strand Bookstore. I’m excited about this book since it’ll likely be another mentor text of free-verse poetry that I can place in front of my students who yearn to write better free-verse poetry. Here’s my growing list of free-verse poetry/novels in verse list:

Heartbeat and Love That Dog by Sharon Creech

Locomotion by Jacqueline Woodson

Where I Live by Eileen Spinelli

…and now 42 Miles by Tracie Vaughn Zimmer

Karen Hesse has a couple too, like Witness and Out of the Dust, but they feel a little too mature for me to use with my fourth grade students.

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One thought on “Writing Free Verse Poetry: More Mentors”

Out of the Dust is phenomenal … but you may be right about its age-appropriateness. I have a teacher friend who built an incredible unit around this book … but, like me, she works with much older students. I’ll have to check out the other books you listed.
–Stacie